Ideas

Sounds like an orginal idea to me (at least I have not heard or seen this yet) ! This could actually be untaimed advertising ground, much broader than advertising new artists !
The memory stick market is huge & still booming !

I believe bidding on a website will not be done in reality.
You will need to integrate the "burning" of physical files on disk somewhere in the production process.

This means :
1. Partner up with memory stick manufacturers like Sandisk, ...
2. As a business, you need to buy & manage an out-of-the box advertising booking system. These tools exists & there's no sense in reinventing/spending effort building this.
3. Sales & finding main sponsors ( big fish like Coca cola ) is your core service towards the manufactures. The amount of sponsors will likely be limited to simplify the integration in the production process.
4. Providing an interface/SDK + consulting for integration in the production process is another core service you provide.
5. The business earns a commission of the advertising revenue.

Of course, a lot will depend on how easy manufacturers can integrate this in their production process + it will only work if the business model proofs they will earn money with it after the initial investment + when it keeps their corporate image sound ( it might drop sales when people dislike the ads/trailers on their new stick ) !

An alternative & less invasive solution for the production process is to put the advertisement on the carton boards or boxes that contain the memory stick, I believe this service already exists.

Imhotep

Interesting idea. I have a 2Gig SD, which I use in the digital camera and MP3 player. Transfer time is slow. I am unsure about the logistics.

Great idea but would you want to buy a memory card that is full (instead of an empty one that he / she can start using right away)?

The end-user would have to know whta kind of stuff is in the card before they buy it. That way it would have value added to the customer. Other than that, sounds like a great idea to me!

The point is it's blank real estate, land in a desert is just land unless you build casinos on it.. then you might really have something!

1. Blank SD card OR....
2. Card with your new favorite movie or trailer
3. Free stock photo's you might be able to use
4. Artists music/photo/video
5. Established companies, Skype, Anti-virus, Game demos
and the list goes on.
Why would you want just a plain memory card when you can get some bonus stuff on one?

Of course it will show on the outside of the package what it contains.

Great Idea, implementation to come.

I don't understand how this idea is implemented. Would it be some sort of deal that CH would have to set up through the oversea manufactures?

I still really like this idea.
Quality 512mb sd cards are under 5 bucks now adays and I would rather have a sd card come with a magazine that I can reuse over a
cd-rom which just becomes a coffee coster.

( Yes it not as great as having a blank memory card that you can use right away but it would bring down the cost by having advertising on them. (movie trailers, stock photo examples, ect. )

There must be a easy way to do this
Anyone have any ideas?

as far a a memory device generic view is concerned, there is not difference between an SD, XD or USB memory. It's all flash. If the card is designed to be erased and reused, then the assumption is that the data would be discarded and have effectively zero value. (unless you perhaps count advertising, demo value). Some major brands (not the 5$ units) already put encryption software, antivirus etc on the USB sticks, so doing this for Sd is nothing new. I don't think it would substantially bring down the cost - it would become just another source of crapware, viruses and people would become wary of them choosing to erase without even looking at the stuff.

I think the idea could be fine enough if the user selects what he wants. Just nuy it online and choose what you might want to have on your memory when you receive it. This might work. Users get the memory they want, and maybe something they like to have a look at, and the company gets the ad revenue (and discounts could come too in the result).